Affordable Housing Preservation in Washington, DC: A Framework for Local Funding, Collaborative Governance and Community Organizing for Change

Affordable Housing Preservation in Washington, DC uses the case of Washington, DC to examine the past, present, and future of subsidized and unsubsidized affordable housing through the lenses of history, governance, and affordable housing policy and planning.

Affordable housing policy in the US has often been focused at the federal level where the laws and funding to build new affordable housing historically have been determined. However, as federal housing subsidies from the 1960s expire and federal funding continues to decline, local governments, tenants and advocates face the difficult challenge of trying to retain affordability amid increasing demand for housing in many American cities. Now, instead of amassing land, financing and sponsors, affordable housing stakeholders must understand the existing resident needs and have access to the market for affordable housing.

Arguing for preservation as a way of acknowledging a basic right to the city, this book examines the ways that the broad range of stakeholders engage at the building and city levels. This book identifies the underlying challenges that enable or constrain preservation to demonstrate that effective preservation requires long-term relationships that engage residents, build trust and demonstrate a willingness to share power among residents, advocates and the government. It is of great interest to academics and students as well as policy makers and practitioners internationally in the fields of housing studies and policy, urban studies, social policy, sociology and political economy.

Kathryn Howell is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and is the co-director of the RVA Eviction Lab. She investigates ways to interrupt ongoing patterns of migration, displacement and segregation in cities. She focuses specifically on affordable housing and public spaces to explore redevelopment, displacement and governance. Over the past decade she has looked at the preservation of affordable housing in Washington, DC, examining the intersection between policies, governance and the built environment. Most recently, she has partnered with community-based and policy advocacy organizations to collect and analyze eviction data to address housing instability and ongoing displacement in communities of color in Richmond. Before earning her PhD, Dr. Howell was a practitioner in local government, developing housing and community development policy in Washington, DC and Maryland agencies.